The Far Side

by Wylie, Gina Marie

  He smiled at them. “Hopefully, you will have read some of this in the materials you were supplied with.”

  Charles and the others nodded assent. Doing homework was the normal state of existence at Norwich.

  “Then you will have learned that we have a number of enemies here.

  “First and foremost, are the small ‘d’ dralka. They are flying dinosaurs that stand about eight feet tall, have twelve to fourteen-foot wingspans and like to nip off the odd arm, leg, or neck.

  “I cannot stress this enough. You can’t spend too much time watching the sky there. We’ve lost two Americans to dralka and had a third badly injured, losing an arm to a dralka. If you keep your eyes on the sky every minute or two, it is less likely to happen to you. Get used to it. I’ll tell you right now that at first, your sole duty will be watching the heavens, and if you don’t do it right, the persons you’re with are going to beat you to a pulp.

  “We seem to have arrived at a point in the local history that counts as ‘interesting times’ as the Chinese would say.

  “The ancient enemy of the Arvalans are the Tengri, who ran them out of their homeland, some nine thousand miles east of the Far Side door and fifteen hundred of our years ago. To the Arvalans, it seems like yesterday. After all of this time, the Tengri have now found the Arvalans and have tried one invasion, and while in theory, the NSA will tell us in advance if they try another invasion, well... you have to consider the source. We’ve been working with some computer geek cryppies and we have developed a lot of in-house capability to monitor their communications.

  “We say it over and over again, but the fact is that if any of you were African-American or even were only exceptionally dark-complexioned, you wouldn’t be here now. The Tengri are black, although not as black as some Africans. The Arvalans are white, in the sense that Sicilians are white. Nonetheless, the animosity is real, and we had serious problems with our two black soldiers who went through the Far Side door to rescue Kris, Andie, and me.

  “It’s not politically correct, but that’s tough shit. Here, if you see a black face, that man will almost certainly be trying to kill you. If you surrender, you will certainly be enslaved. I have it on good authority that being a slave is not fun. You, Cadet Kemp, would promptly be raped, because they don’t want to bother with slave women who object to being raped a few times a day.

  “If the black face is a woman, she will fear you, expecting to be killed or enslaved and raped in turn. These cultural attitudes don’t sit well with ours and our cultural conditioning. If you let your attitudes and cultural conditioning determine your response to a situation, you’ll be dead or worse.

  “Kris Boyle did the right thing. She saw a Tengri about to kill a woman. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t yell ‘Stop you mother fucker!’ -- she just shot him dead. A few weeks later another man, a local military leader, was commanded to kill her. At the time, they weren’t entirely sure what pistols were, and she pulled out her 9 mil and put a round through the asshole’s forehead at a range of about three feet. It made a hell of mess! So did the round she put in the first guy.

  “The thing you have to remember is that Kris Boyle is alive and well today, and those guys are dead. If she’d hesitated at all, either time, the situation would have been reversed.

  “Now, for what you in particular are going to be doing here.

  “Kris is busy with Norwich, so Andie Schulz is working with the Arvalans on a number of projects. Right now our only way of transportation to the city is by ATV -- or walking. It’s four hundred miles. ATV’s are slow, a little dangerous, and can carry a driver and only one passenger, plus a very limited cargo. Since the city is four hundred miles away, half of what the ATV carries is gasoline. We’re just starting to set up fuel caches along the way, and by the start of our summer we should be in better shape.

  “The area around the Far Side door is what we would call high desert, although there it’s near sea level. I’m not sure why it looks more like high desert than desert, but that’s just the way it is. There is little water for pack animals, so, for now, the ATV’s are our best means of travel. Also, their one beast of burden is like a cape buffalo crossed with a camel -- it has a fiery temper.

  “We will be escorting a party of surveyors north. Andie has decided that the way to break the logistical logjam is to build a railroad from here to there. We’ve surveyed the first hundred and twenty miles north, and now we’re going to do another ten-mile segment.

  “The surveyors estimate that it will take about a week to do their job on their part.

  “We will take two days to reach the end of what’s been surveyed, we’ll spend a week at the end of the run, and then we will push north to Arvala and show you the Golden City. After three days there, we’ll go east, to the small village, Siran-ista, that’s on the eastern terminus of their defensive wall against the dinosaurs that pretty much rule the northern jungles here.

  “We’ll stay two days there, and then we’ll come down the east coast of the peninsula, until we’re opposite the rookery and then cut across. Three weeks, all told, plus a week quarantine stay after that. I understand that you’re missing finals; I’m sure your hearts bleed. It is possible that if all goes as planned we will have you back and through quarantine so that you can spend at least New Years with your families.

  “That said, of course, Norwich has thoughtfully provided you course materials, study aids and a pamphlet put together by Kris, Andie, and myself. I will supervise that work.

  “Let me sum this up in just a few words. You’ll be riding in ATV sidecars north. There will be four parties of six vehicles each, about a mile apart. Your particular duties will entail frequent scans of the sky to prevent aerial attack.

  “Earlier I was going to mention it, but I forgot. Interesting times! Yes indeed. The dralka only rarely came south until recently, because there is no food for them here in the desert. It will be something of a miracle if you see any of the local wildlife -- they only come out at night and stay away from any noise or movement.

  “However, in the near past, a dralka discovered how to swoop down from on high and scoop up fish. They can routinely fly a hundred miles at a stretch, so that means they’ve been coming south, living off fish, where before they’d have starved.

  “Dralka have been seen south, I repeat, south of the tip of the peninsula. That is not a good sign, I’m afraid. You will be given a number of ‘sighting report forms.’ You will report on any dralka that you see, even if you don’t engage them. You will particularly note height, heading and number of any that you see, regardless of whether or not they were engaged. You will have maps and will put the grid references to any dralka that you see and make particular note of any that look like they are landing. The Arvalans have no intentions of letting the dralka reestablish rookeries along the peninsula, as they once had.

  “This is real, boys and girl. Very real. All of our casualties have, so far, come from dralka. Most American soldiers aren’t accustomed to spending their time watching the skies, because the zoomies usually own them. Not so here.

  “You don’t have a complex task to accomplish -- but you will be assisting in a task that will have significant tactical and strategic impact. Right now the Arvalans can’t operate their army this far south for very long, because of the logistics. We’re working on that very hard, because the Tengri have a base about a hundred miles away from the door.

  “I might also add the traditional warning, one that I’ve heard since the first time I met Kris and Andie. When you went through the Far Side door, you took a step across a distance so vast that we literally have no idea where we end up. We’ve provided star charts as best we can, but astronomers don’t think this planet is even in the Milky Way galaxy.

  “If that door closes -- as you may have heard it once did, those of us on the other side are fucked. Seriously, majorly fucked. If the Tengri ever realize the importance of this cave and raid it with just the simple intention of blowing down
the mountain on it, we’re equally screwed.

  “Now there are almost a full company of men serving over here. They guard the area around the door. They have the whole nine yards -- SAWs, mortars, RPGs, you name it -- all to keep that door from being closed from the far side. Back here on Earth... well, we think we have things in hand. I can’t go into detail about security on this side.”

  He grinned at them. “So, now is the time to head back to Vermont and a warm, toasty fire for Christmas, skiing on the Norwich slopes and relax. Or mount up for the adventure of a lifetime.”

  Charles smiled slightly. He’d been wild with joy when he’d heard the nature of General Briggs’ contest and when he’d heard about this, for the best all-around cadet in each of the three upper classes, he’d redoubled his efforts in the classrooms.

  He was out of his seat, ready to go an instant after Ezra Lawson had finished his speech.

  It was anticlimactic, really. They went through a heavy steel door, down a corridor, through another door, and then through a blue rectangle. It was a high step to get through the blue door, but really, all things considered, trivial.

  On the other side they were hustled down a corridor to a chamber in the cave. They went through an open entrance and found themselves in an armory, where they were offered a choice of weapons. Ezra Lawson simply picked up one of the ubiquitous P90s and a dozen magazines, then went to a man issuing field gear.

  Charles didn’t want an automatic weapon, so he took a sniper rifle. It was not just any sniper rifle; it was the king of the sniper rifles, a Barrett M107 .50 caliber rifle. The downside was that it was just a little on the heavy side and the ammunition was, literally, leaden.

  Ezra Lawson looked at his choice and shook his head. “Cadet, if you need a lot of fire power in a hurry, you’re toast.”

  “On the other hand, I’ve fired this before, and I can hit a truck out to a mile. You say those dralka things are eight feet by fourteen feet?”

  “Well, more like eight feet by two feet. You can hit them in the wings all day long and just piss them off. Where did you shoot a Barrett?”

  “I was an E-4 in Iraq, Mr. Lawson. I used my college money to go to Norwich. I was the brigade’s lead sniper.” Charles patted the rifle. “I know how to use this baby. You said we could have a pistol as well as a rifle, and I know the regulations. An M-2 carbine is considered a pistol.”

  “That it is. You start grumbling about all the weight, and I will personally shove the Barrett up your ass.”

  Charles grinned. “Feel free -- but, like I said, I’m a grunt at heart.”

  A while later the three Norwich cadets were sitting in a group, watching others prepare the vehicles for the trip.

  Adam spoke softly, obviously not wanting to be overheard. “I don’t know about you two, but this sure looks and sounds more like preparations for a real combat patrol than a simple tour through the Far Side door, showing us what is here on the other side.”

  Sally Kemp chuckled. “You must have been asleep, Adam. What part of ‘Exposure to the new realities of military life in the expanded universe that has been opened up’ didn’t you understand? That this is serious, that they don’t have time for lookie-loos? That this is real and that over here things can go in the toilet in just a few minutes?”

  “They said it was an orientation tour,” Adam said stubbornly.

  Charles laughed to himself remembering his first patrol in Iraq. They’d called that an “orientation” as well. That had been at the height of the insurgency, and while no one in his company had been killed on his first patrol, there had been one hell of a lot of fire and brimstone as mines were exploded, trying to hit one of their vehicles. And a lot of good men -- and women -- had been killed and wounded before they’d finally come home.

  Chapter 33 :: The Adventure of a Lifetime

  So, off Charles, Adam, and Sally went, along with more than thirty others. They didn’t move very fast as ATV’s aren’t the most stable transportation platform ever. Add a trailer for supplies and they were ungainly and awkward. They moved north at less than fifteen miles an hour, and Charles spent his entire time, checking his assigned sectors of the sky, and while he was at it, in every other direction as well.

  When the terrain turned rough they only averaged about ten miles an hour. There was something like a road, but it wasn’t really suited to high speed travel, even from an ATV’s point of view.

  Charles wasn’t sure if Ezra Lawson’s decision that Charles should ride in the ATV Lawson was driving was a mark of favor or disdain, but Charles simply did his job without a fuss.

  After four hours they stopped an hour for lunch -- MREs, which at least Charles was familiar with. Half of the people ate at one time, while the other half were on guard, then after a half hour they swapped off.

  Charles made a mental note about that. In Iraq, when they bunkered up for a meal, a couple of people had guard duty and the rest ate. If you had the guard, you ate later. Considering how tired he’d been on some of those patrols, he blessed Ezra Lawson’s method as far superior to that the army had used in Iraq. Everyone got to eat.

  By late in the afternoon, they arrived at the end of the surveyed line, and for the next two hours the surveyors traveled over the local area checking that the route than had been initially selected still looked good.

  Ezra spoke to the three cadets after the evening meal was finished. “It’s generally safe here at night, but we’ll be running a perimeter guard anyway. For tonight, you three are excused. Starting tomorrow, one of you will have the duty each night. The other shooters here know their business, and you should be sure to ask questions of them whenever you’re not a hundred percent positive.

  “As I’ve said, the Arvalans and the Tengri aren’t into the ‘God’ business. Thus, they have no problem with running around at night, at least philosophically. If you get up in the middle of the night tonight, you’re going to find it really, really dark as this is what they call a ‘double dark’ night. The Big Moon doesn’t touch either horizon tonight. Yesterday it touched; tomorrow night it’ll touch, but not tonight.

  “At least one person who saw the Big Moon in daylight had an instant claustrophobic attack. That’s not happened at night, because, at least at night, all you’ll see is a big chunk out of the sky until about five local time tomorrow, when there will be a hint of sunrise on the Big Moon.

  “It takes not quite eleven days for the Big Moon to return to where it was before. A day in the daylight, free from the horizon, a day like tonight, free from the horizon in the middle of the night. Two days after, as it approaches the terminator, and three-eighths of a day with it straddling the terminator.

  “Generally speaking, neither the Tengri nor the Arvalans move around on a night like tonight, because you need a light, and then everyone knows you’re coming. It invites an ambush. They don’t move around much at night, period.

  “The dralka don’t fly at night. We have yet to see one up within a half hour after sunrise or before sunset. Still, we watch until it’s too dark to watch any more. It only takes being eaten alive once to ruin the rest of your day.”

  He went and busied himself talking to the half dozen surveyors.

  Charles looked around the camps, for there were really four camps, about a hundred yards apart. The ATVs were set up in a diamond pattern, one vehicle at the north and south apexes, and one more at the northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast apexes, and then the smaller pattern repeated with groups of vehicles at the apexes of the larger diamond, except four groups instead of six.

  Charles spent a few minutes building a firing position, knowing Ezra was watching him. Off and on during the day, Charles had seen glimpses of the ocean, a couple of miles off to the west. Ezra Lawson’s ATV was in the northernmost group, on the north apex -- further north than any of the others.

  When it was dark, everyone in the various groups gathered at a single fire in the ring of vehicles of the northern group. Ezra listed the assign
ments for the next day, and Charles learned that he and Ezra were going to go a bit further north, a mile ahead of where the survey was going to start and, via radio, stay a mile in advance of the surveyors, due north of their position. Other ATVs would ring the surveyors in all directions.

  It was clear that during the actual surveying the ATVs were going to provide a protective shell for the three surveyors and their three designated assistants -- men who were all armed with automatic weapons, just like the guards.

  Ezra sat down next to Charles while they were eating. “I have a favor to ask of you, Cadet.”

  “Sure, Mr. Lawson.”

  “When we start to egress, we’ll let everyone know, but I dearly would like to squeeze a round or two off from your Barrett.”

  Charles smiled. “Mr. Lawson, the Barrett has a bad reputation for shooting the shooter in the head if you’re not careful. Ricochets are unpleasant, even if they miss.”

  “I will exercise due care.” Ezra looked around. “In the ‘Stan and Iraq, I was an artillery observer. I never actually fired a weapon at anyone. Targets, yeah, I fired at targets on all sorts of ranges. And sure, I put laser designators on all sorts of things, including people. But it was never me who pulled the trigger and killed a living human being. Not until I got here.”

  He looked at Charles. “I was Kris’ and Andie’s bodyguard. I never once protected them from any of their human enemies -- they did that themselves. I killed a couple of dralka; that was all and shot at guys in a couple of battles. I helped, but they did their share and more.”

  It was something Charles was familiar with. A lot of people were good shots, but made lousy snipers -- their heart wasn’t in it. Until you actually squeezed off a money round, you never knew in your heart if you could do it. Some guys he’d known had hearts of stone and never thought about it. He’d thought about it. It wasn’t easy and he’d never shot someone just minding his business. His targets had all had weapons in their hands and as far as Charles was concerned, that earned them target status.